Autoinstallation Profiles

When you have prepared an autoinstallation file and distribution, you can create profiles to manage autoinstallation on your SUSE Manager Server. You can create multiple autoinstallation profiles, to manage different distributions.

To see and manage your autoinstallation profiles, navigate to Systems  Autoinstallation  Profiles.

Create an Autoinstallation Profile

You can create your autoinstallation profile directly in the SUSE Manager Web UI. The simplest way to create a profile is to upload an AutoYaST or Kickstart file. Alternatively, for Kickstart only, you can use the Web UI wizard.

Before you begin, you must have created an autoinstallation distribution, and prepared an autoinstallation file. For more information about autoinstallation distributions and files, see client-configuration:autoinst-setup.adoc.

Procedure: Creating an Autoinstallation Profile by Upload

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  Autoinstallation  Profiles.

  2. Click Upload Kickstart/Autoyast File.

  3. In the Label field, type a name for the profile. Do not use spaces.

  4. In the Autoinstall Tree field, select the autoinstallation distribution to use for this profile.

  5. In the Virtualization Type field, select the type of virtualization to use for this profile, or select None for no virtualization.

  6. Copy the contents of your autoinstallation file into the File Contents field, or upload the file directly using the File to Upload field.

  7. Click Create to create the profile.

Procedure: Creating a Kickstart Profile by Wizard

  1. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  Autoinstallation  Profiles.

  2. Click Create Kickstart Profile.

  3. In the Label field, type a name for the profile. Do not use spaces.

  4. In the Base Channel field, select the base channel to use for this profile. This field is populated from the distributions available. If the base channel you need is not available, check that you have created the distribution correctly.

  5. In the Virtualization Type field, select the type of virtualization to use for this profile, or select None for no virtualization. . Click Next.

  6. In the Distribution File Location type the path to the installation media installed on the SUSE Manager Server. . Click Next.

  7. Provide a password for the root user on the client.

  8. Click Finish.

  9. Review the details of your new profile, and customize as required.

When you are creating your autoinstallation profile, you can check Always use the newest Tree for this base channel. This setting allows SUSE Manager to automatically pick the latest distribution that is associated with the specified base channel. If you add new distributions later, SUSE Manager uses the most recently created or modified.

Changing the Virtualization Type usually requires changes to the profile bootloader and partition options. This can overwrite your customization. Verify new or changed settings before saving them, by navigating to the Partitioning tab.

You can change the details and settings of your autoinstallation profiles by navigating to Systems  Autoinstallation  Profiles and clicking the name of the profile you want to edit.

To adjust advanced autoinstallation configuration options, navigate to Systems  System List, select the client you want to provision, and navigate to the Provisioning  Autoinstallation subtab. Select the autoinstallation profile to use, and click Advanced Configuration. For traditional clients, use the various fields to set options for specialized Kickstart scenarios. For Salt clients, provide the kernel options you require. For more information about these options, see https://documentation.suse.com/sles/html/SLES-all/book-sle-admin.html.

File Preservation for Kickstart

If you have many custom configuration files located on a client you want to Kickstart, you can save them as a list, and associate that list with the Kickstart profile to be used.

In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Systems  Autoinstallation  File Preservation and click Create File Preservation List. Enter a suitable label, and list absolute paths to all files and directories you want to save. Click Create List.

Include the file preservation list in your Kickstart profile by navigating to Systems  Autoinstallation  Profiles and selecting the profile you want to edit. Navigate to the System Details  File Preservation subtab and select the file preservation list to include.

File preservation lists are limited to a total size of 1 MB. Special devices like /dev/hda1 and /dev/sda1 are not supported. Only use file and directory names, you cannot use regular expression wildcards.